A chance for Harry O'Brien to borrow his sister's courage

Collingwood's Harry O'Brien prepares to train at Olympic Park on July 9, 2013 in Melbourne.

Getty Images: Quinn Rooney

A confused and tormented Harry O'Brien gave insight into his personal demons when he spoke to media yesterday. But when considering his return to the oval, O'Brien can take inspiration from his sister, as he did during another difficult period of his life, writes Barrie Cassidy.

Collingwood's Heritier "Harry" O'Brien is the antithesis of the stereotypical footballer: thoughtful and compassionate with a deep sense of right and wrong.

He is a regular at homeless shelters, and a youth ambassador who has travelled to Africa and to his native Brazil to better understand poverty. He writes extensively and conducts workshops with youth groups and students.

Yet what the nation saw on Tuesday was a confused and tormented individual walking alone to rejoin his Collingwood teammates at training. O'Brien talked of depression, suicide and the aftershocks of witnessing a murder. The rest, the speculation about a bust up at the club and his agreed absence for a few days, were secondary.

The murder that clearly still haunts him happened during a visit to the slums of Rio on Christmas Day, 2011.

O'Brien later told a radio station he was walking to a shop when a car crashed behind him:

As I looked into the car and I looked at this young man, I could see a look in his eyes, there was a desperation.

I could see regrets, I could see anger, frustration. He knew he was taking his last breaths.

I locked eyes with him. It was possibly the most intimate moment I've ever had in my life.

Moments later the young man died from gunshot wounds to the neck. Undoubtedly, that experience has been impossible to shake.

But perhaps it was the references to depression and suicide that tell us even more about the demons that this extraordinarily talented footballer is living with.

O'Brien was born to a Brazilian mother and a Congolese father in Rio de Janeiro and moved to Western Australia, without his natural father, when he was three.

Soon afterwards, his mother met Ralph, who became his stepfather and, as far as O'Brien was concerned, his real father in every sense. He didn't hear of or meet his natural father until he was 19.

But just before the 2009 football season, Ralph took his own life.

O'Brien was devastated and thought about taking a year out of the game to be with his family in the west.

Collingwood's then coach Mick Malthouse phoned O'Brien and had a profound influence on him when he said: "You father took his own life, but don't let him take yours."

But the real inspiration - and O'Brien has written about this - was his sister, Raquel.

At the time, she was 16 and studying year 11. Her class had been asked to deliver persuasive speeches and Raquel decided to speak openly about the devastation for her when her father suicided.

But as O'Brien wrote:

The day she had to deliver her speech she was very nervous. When her teacher called her up, Raquel walked to the front of the class. She went to open her mouth, but nothing came out. She could feel the blood rushing to her head and started to realise all the eyes in the classroom were on her. The pressure got to be too much. She broke down in tears and ran out of the classroom.

O'Brien wrote that Raquel then called their mother who told Raquel she should honour her commitment and deliver that speech. It's what her father would have wanted. And that's what she did.

In that speech, she said, among other things, that her dad was her hero, a selfless man who would do anything to make her life easier.

She explained that unfortunately life got unbearable for her father for reasons that she could not properly understand. However, she said:

I'm not here today to discuss the prevention of suicide. I'm here to talk to you all about when it comes out of thin air and hits you like a tonne of bricks.

It's so easy to question why, I know, because I've felt that way. What is harder, but far more important to do, is to try to understand that person's feelings.

Many people see suicide as a selfish option; an escape, so to speak ... but let's get rid of this option and consider the despair, the depression, the angst that the person must have been feeling for them to truly believe that their life was no longer worth living.

I can't even begin to imagine the extent of emotional pain people who choose to end their own lives must have endured. The mere thought makes me feel deep sympathy and sorrow for all those who have committed suicide.

Raquel then told the class that soon after her father's death, her brother Heritier told her:

Dad loved us and would never do anything to hurt us. You've got to realise that at that very moment, at that very point in time, that was the only option that Dad felt he had. I'm sure if he could turn back time, things would be different. At least now he's in peace.

"Since that day," Raquel told the class, "I've never again questioned why my dad took his life.

"I stress for you all, if you ever have to experience this ordeal, take the time to think of that person's feelings and have compassion and love."

When Raquel finished, the class gave her a standing ovation. It now occurs to me that Raquel can inspire O'Brien once again.

He too did the equivalent of walking out of that class when the banter at the Collingwood players' meeting so infuriated him. But now he can do what his sister did four years ago, and what his mother urged.

He can walk back into the club and make his own statement in deeds, just as his sister did so courageously in words.

Not for him, not this time anyway, the carefully chosen and sensitively delivered sentiments of his sister; but instead, how about another of those breathtaking bursts from defence and a long penetrating kick into the forward line? And maybe for good measure, at some stage, a goal on the run?

Do that and the whole class, the 70,000 Collingwood members, will give him the standing ovation that he too so thoroughly deserves.

Barrie Cassidy is the presenter of ABC programs Insiders and Offsiders. View his full profile here.